Excerpt:“If you’ve ever stood and stared at yourself in a funhouse mirror and saw yourself as someone you don’t recognize, distorted or with two faces, then you have a pretty good idea of how Stohlman’s latest collection of oddities takes you through the gambit of freakshow possibilities in each of her stories. Stohlman, a performer herself, speaks of a childhood growing up with a circus clown for a mother and a father who seems to be obsessed with placing in the Guinness Book of World Records for various silly attempts.

Although the obvious thread connecting these stories together seems to be Stohlman’s quirky, clown-angst teenage years followed by confusing adulthood scenes, there’s another side to this thread that runs parallel to this theme. Much like the two-faced lady or the conjoined twins, Stohlman seems to be running alongside of her twin from another dimension, a more popular, put together version. But with anything that reflects bigger, better, and brighter, Stohlman summons emotions in each piece that can’t be blurred or escaped from. That’s what makes this mixed bag of oddities about as real as it can get.

SpokenWord Paris is one pole of a nomadic tribe of people who love poetry, writing and song. A home for creatives and lost anglophones. We do an open mic night called SpokenWord every Monday au Chat Noir and an allied writers’ workshop at Shakespeare & Company (every Sunday.) We do a literary journal called The Bastille and Tightrope Books published many of us in the book “Strangers in Paris.” Click on the blue stamp on the right to sign up to the mailing list.

SpokenWord
Starts again 4th Sept. Then every Monday Au Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud 75011. Métro Parmentier/Couronnes. Sign up 8pm to 9.30pm in the bar. Poetics start from 8.30pm underground. Check out thePractical info page for more info. Paris’ biggest and longest-running English open mic night, started in 2006. All langues welcome. Entry one euro.

Get your sunglasses at the ready, because July 5’s featured performer is queen of flash, the author Nancy Stohlman! Sign-up from 8, shades on at 8.45pm…

Nancy Stohlman is the author of the flash fiction collection The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, the flash novels The Monster Opera and Searching for Suzi, and three anthologies including Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, which was a finalist for a 2011 Colorado Book Award. She is the creator and curator of The Fbomb Flash Fiction Reading Series, the creator of FlashNano in November. She lives in Denver and teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her newest book, Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities, is forthcoming in the fall of 2018.

Paris LitUp happens every Thursday in English (other languages too – when in Rome, speak French) at the historic home of French Slam poetry, Culture Rapide (103 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020). If you would like to read, dance, sing or otherwise express yourself, sign up is open and free to all starting at 8pm-ish. We go until we drop – which means all night long! In any language. Or no language at all. No limits. From extreme poetry and explosive prose to exhilarating music and even excellent theatre.

Plus, each week Featured Performers from around the world are invited to strut their stuff before our rowdy but respectful audience.

Yes, that’s right, it’s summer, and if it all goes as planned you will get a lot more reading done, right? But several times a year (usually in the summer) I find myself saturated with words, burned out on sentences. It’s like my reading engine gets flooded and I just can’t take in anything else. And just like with an actual engine, the only thing you can do when you’ve flooded your reading engine is wait.

So what do you read while you are waiting? This is when I start rereading. The beauty of rereading is there is no risk–you aren’t trying to figure out the plot, you aren’t even trying to decide if you like the book or not. With all that out of the way rereading becomes a comfortable reunion with an old friend, words and stories that have moved you (at least once) already. You don’t have to pay such close attention–you can just enjoy the scenery a little more and watch how the whole mechanism gets put together.

So for your summer (re) reading pleasure, I’ve put together a list of 40 of my favorite recent rereads, books I’ve read at least twice including some old friends I’ve read dozens of times and never get tired of:

Host Nancy Stohlman! Nancy Stohlman’s books include The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, The Monster Opera, Searching for Suzi: a flash novel, and four anthologies including Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, a finalist for a 2011 Colorado Book Award. She is the creator and curator of the Fbomb Flash Fiction Reading Series in Denver, the impetus behind FlashNano, and her work was nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Find out more about her atwww.nancystohlman.com

Featuring Monique Antonette Lewis! Monique Antonette Lewisisthe founder of At The Inkwell, a New York City-based organization that supports published authors through book reviews, author interviews and readings. The reading series is hosted across Denver, New York, Richmond, San Francisco, Seattle and London.She is also an annual reader for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Monique has more than a decade of journalism experience and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University, and a B.A. in Journalism from Colorado State University. Monique lives in Denver.

I just found out that Blink Ink nominated me for the Vera Flash Fiction prize and I’m a FINALIST! (And in good company, I might add). Right now the crowd is voting and it would be the BEST holiday gift ever if you would take literally 30 seconds and vote for my story, “My Father is Trying to Set the World Record for Days Spent Petting a Shark.” Pretty please and thank you!!